The Pianist's Guide to Practical Technique: 111 Technical Studies from Music You Want to Play

Enjoying this "guide" very much. The music selections are, for the most part, pieces and parts of sonatas, preludes. variations, etc. - Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann ... - "studies drawn from music we want to play." The first part is "Least Complex", and progresses to Part IV, which is "Most Complex" (and complex it is). The print is very clear, and large enough for me; fingering suggestions are where they need to be and quite helpful. Stannard includes an Introduction that discusses dexterity, veolocity, how to use the collection and practicing techniques.

Conveniently skips over the real stumbling blocks.A lack of analysis, and I mean microscopic, which is what Bach , and really all the greats require.How come none of these guys can write a Two-Part Invention? The real problem with piano technique is that is isn't taught correctly and there is no method out there that can. so all these people resort to muscle-ology and wrist this and forearm that. Clementi and Czerny didn't teach people to play music, they taught them to "play" the piano. Follow the music, and if you can't play a phrase, change it to something you can.

I teach piano, but I am rusty, so I am going back and reviewing my technique...I guess I am taking lessons from myself...???

Excellent !

item as described

This book consists of a collection of snippets from the music primarily of Mozart and Haydn, with a sprinkling of Bach, Beethoven, and others, along with a general introduction on matters of piano technique. The musical extracts are clear, and have reasonably thorough finger markings which seem, so far, to be appropriate.The book is supposed to be a step up (in interest) from Hannon et al., and in a sense it is. What it contains is actual music -- it sounds agreeable, or at least inoffensive, when played properly. It isn't all necessarily "music you want to play" but, to be fair, it's closer to the music I want to play than Hannon is.However, the good thing about Hannon (and similar) is that you get a lot of hand and finger exercise in a relatively short time. That's the advantage of brainless exercises. As soon as you start to treat real music as a technical exercise, you have to consider interpretation, dynamics, and -- most importantly -- memory. It takes time to work these pieces up to a fluency at which you are really practicing technique.I would suggest that, unless you're an outstanding sight-reader, you'll get most out of this volume by working on one piece at a time until you can play it fluently enough that it truly becomes an exercise in technique -- until you can play it as mindlessly as Hannon, in other words. I guess how long that will take will depend on the reader's skill and memory. There's less to be gained, in my view, by working on each piece for five minutes, before going on to the next one, even though this is a viable approach with Hannon -- perhaps even a necessary one, to avoid death by boredom, or murder by neighbours.That aside, because the book has "guide" in the title, I rather expected it to have more tutorial information. I sort-of thought that there would be an overview of each piece, perhaps with indications of areas that would need special attention, or perhaps information about style or interpretation. None of these things are secrets, of course, but I think this is really more of a "workbook" than a "guide."I suspect that those who will get most out of this book are people who do really want to play the kind of music it presents -- essentially 18th century stuff. Music of the romantic era and later perhaps creates different technical challenges.All in all, not a bad book, and I will use it; but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

I am using this guide in conjunction with the author's "piano technique demystified" and really enjoying it. It is aimed at the mature student and has a nice progression from "easy" to "more difficult" music selections. It is not for the young student however unless there is an adult that can help them work through the examples. I would like to see the author put together a version for young students (age 13 and younger) that my children could use.

A fine, well-planned selection of technical pieces.

Schlampig gemacht: Das Inhaltsverzeichnis ist unbrauchbar, man kann sich nur über den Index orientieren.Teilweise sind die gebrachten Stücke platte Ausschnitte aus dem Original, da kann man die Technik auch gleich selber aus dem Original heraus üben.